This week Rachel finished Tokyo: A Certain Style by Kyoichi Tsuzuki:"This is the coffee table book for people who live in apartments the size of SUVs. Since we just moved this past week, I stumbled upon this book again (which I'd never really finished reading) and felt much better about all of our clutter around our new house. Seeing the way real people live in Tokyo (without the Zen gardens and the minimalist rooms you see in Japanese decor books) is fascinating and inspiring. It's just room after room packed with books, clothes, CDs, pots and pans, organized to the hilt or not, students, professionals, families, all juggling their lives between their tiny personal space and their possessions."

Lauren read Playing Right Field by George Tabb: "George is a long time contributor to Maximum Rock 'n' Roll. His columns are always very funny and enjoyable to read. This book reads just like the essays and details the life of George as a child, following him unt…

I've extended the Flickr Pro Account contest since there were many technical difficulties in the past week (Flickr was down, Blogger's always got some kind of issues...). So here are the details again:

It was 45 degrees and drizzly at 6:30pm yesterday, but some brave souls came out to play softball anyway. It wasn't as Bad News Bears-y as I expected (who expected bookworms to be so competent at sports?) and it's always a good time watching Benn's pants fall down as he tries to run.

The Baltimore Bookstore League will meet every Sunday at 6:30pm at Roosevelt Park's diamond (Corner of Falls Rd. & 36th St. in Hampden). Come a little early to warm up. Especially if you haven't touched a ball or bat in 25 years. Like me.

Check this blog for cancellations.

And watch out for the cops on the corner with their seat belt trap. They've been out there on Sundays disrupting traffic and yelling at motorists...because they've got nothing better to do?

"Anyone who uses 'shuffle' a lot will tell you that iPods have a personality and go through moods," says Ray, who named his iPod AtomicPod - Atom for short. "I've heard they did studies to verify the randomness of the iPod, but I don't care. Atom definitely gets into moods where it wants to play certain kinds of music."

These iPodsters are worse than people who anthropomorphize their pets!

This week Rachel read Sleepy Little Kittens by Torahiko Yamashita:"This isn't a book so much as an instrument of torture. It's a fucking cute bomb."

Lauren read Dolltopiaby Abby Denson: "The story revolves around Kitty Ballerina and Jim the army man doll. Tired of their lives being played out by human fantasy, they escape the dream house for the land of Dolltopia where dolls that choose not to conform live. It's a story of punk rock dolls and embraces the ideas of freedom of choice and revolution.

The art is very cute, in the style of Dame Darcey, and the story is fun."

Remember, THIS Friday is Midnight Madness here on the Avenue. It's a night where most businesses will be open later than usual, serving refreshments or having sales and specials, and a lot of us will be open until Midnight.

Here at Atomic Books, we'll have another Karaoke Revolution Tournament in our lounge. Starts at 9pm SHARP. And this time, there's a duet competition! Get here a little before 9 to get your names in the drawing for the competition.

Atomic Books is Benn and Rachel. A little Maggie, a bit Lauren, along with Dug and the ghost of Huffines. And all of our loyal customers, distributors, zinesters and publishers who help us fill this place by sharing their interests and opening our horizons to even more great stuff. And that's it folks. We're just a tiny bookstore trying to make it in the big bad world, carving out a niche where we can like what we do and do what we like.

This week, Rachel finished Liquor by Poppy Z. Brite:"I finished Liquor just in time to savor the sequel, Prime, which just came out a couple of weeks ago. It's like Food NetworkSlash (Come on, Lenny=Emeril??)! Lots of behind the scenes info about the restaurant biz, the types of people who get into the field and general New Orleans style drinking, drugging and eating."

Lauren read Barrelhouse:"A new literary magazine inspired by a drunken night of brainstorming. I am generally not a fan of literary journals, but this one is completely different. Barrelhouse combines essays, fiction, poetry and comics in a pretty package with great writing broad topics: Steve Almond(author of one of my favorite books Candyfreak)writes about how much Hollywood/Blockbusters suck, an interview with the fabulous Emmylou Harris and 'Metal Church' considers the hidden love of metal that a regular working stiff feels.

But then she got sad, too...when she realized that Atomic Books is NOT moving to Ellicott City after all. Sorry Amy, we're not going to be neighbors after all.

In the Shank this week it was announced that Atomic Books would be moving to Ellicott City.

April Fools, people!

I'm pretty uncomfortable with pranks. Mostly because it's so similar to straight up lying, which is really hard for me to do in RL, though not so hard online (did I really make you cry, Lisa?) or over the phone (sorry, Chris X!).

I held out as long as I could mostly through avoidance. Next year, Benn will have to just prank us all by himself.

This week Benn finished V For Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd:"Back in the late 80s, when V for Vendetta first came out, I recall reading it and being underwhelmed. During the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush Part 1 Regime, there was a lot of Orwellian dystopia going on. Most likely it was a cultural fascination with the book 1984 since we'd just passed the year 1984. And, of course, the end of the Cold War and the politics of Reagan/Bush helped feed into that Orwellian worldview. So the book didn't strike me as particularly original or even that relevant. I've tried going back over the years and rereading V for Vendetta just to see if there was something I missed, but I found Lloyd's bleak art and Siobhan Dodds' flat coloring impenetrable. Plus, that was during the Clinton years, everyone was having fun, making money, and the story of a totalitarian government that spies on its citizens and a terrorist revolutionary hero rising up seemed even more distant. …